The Zagreb Salon is a renowned exhibition and one of the oldest national group exhibitions displaying the most recent art production – a contemporary art fair alternately focusing on visual arts, architecture and urbanism, or applied arts and design.  Organized respectively by Croatian Association of Artists, Croatian Architects Association and Croatian Association of Artists of Applied Arts, it has been taking place since 1966. The 51st Zagreb Salon, organized by the Croatian Association of Artists, is dedicated to visual arts.

Having taken into consideration the socio-political commotions culminating in the great wave of forced migrants from the East, and the media coverage ascribing them with the disintegration of Europe (e.g. Slovakia proclaimed it would only accept Christians during the distribution of Syrian refugees among the member states of the EU, Hungary put up a four meters high razor-wire wall all along its 175 kilometers border with Serbia, Slovenia put up a barbed wire fence on its Croatian border, Croatia closed its borders to refugees on March 9, 2016),  it was the intention of our thematic call for proposals for the 51st Zagreb Salon entitled Challenging Humanism to steer applying artists towards a critical reading of humanism within the ever dominant trinity of oppression – racism, sexism and speciesism, i.e. discrimination based on race, sex or species (animal and plant, Earth). To that end, how to visualize the Evil and the Good of today, how to visualize humanism in any of the visual culture media? Or in the words of Ivan Supek, a physicist, writer, historian, philosopher, fighter for peace and humanist, who never belonged to a political party or a single worldview, and whose 100th anniversary of birth was marked last year: “Humanism… It is the only idea with the potential of connecting the entire world. The world can never unite based on a single moral or religious idea, but rather needs a very broad grounds, as granted by humanism.”

Curators and professional associates
Suzana Marjanić, Marijana Stanić, 90+60+90 Contemporary art platform

Catalogue editors
Suzana Marjanić, Martina Miholić, Marijana Stanić

Foreword
Suzana Marjanić, Marijana Stanić

Publisher 
Croatian Association of Fine Artists

For the Publisher
Josip Zanki, president

163 pages, illustrations in colour, Croatian/English

Printed by
Tiskarna Zelina d.d.

Print run
300

Visual identity, graphic design, prepress and layout
Ivan Klisurić

Photographs of the exhibition set up and reproductions
Jasenko Rasol

Photographs of the exhibition opening
Juraj Vuglač

Translation
Petra Šlosel, Mia Orsag

Proofreading
Perta Šlosel

ISBN: 978-953-8098-07-9

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